A preliminary study on diversity and community structure of phytoseiid mites associated with medicinal plants in selected locations of telangana

Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2021.1003.124 A Preliminary Study on Diversity and Community Structure of Phytoseiid Mites associated with Medicinal Plants in

Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2021.1003.124

A Preliminary Study on Diversity and Community Structure of Phytoseiid Mites associated with Medicinal Plants in Selected Locations of Telangana

Md Iftiar Hossain Molla, Priyankar Mondal, Suvash Ch Bala* and Krishna Karmakar

Department of Agricultural Entomology, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya,

Mohanpur, West Bengal-741252, India

*Corresponding author

A B S T R A C T

Introduction

Telangana state is a newly formed southern

region state of India, created by bifurcating

Andhra Pradesh state on 2nd June 2014 The

total geographical area of Telangana state is

112.07 lakh hectares, of which 23.89 % area is

covered by forest and about 43.20 % area is

under cultivation (Bhargavi, 2017) Over 2000

species of medicinal plants are found in

Telangana state (Singh and Vidyasagar, 2015)

Telangana State Medicinal Plant Board has implemented various scheme to encourage the farmers for cultivation of medicinal plants in the farm through subsidies and also train the people for collection of medicinal plants from the forest land for upkeeping the livelihood of the tribal people and helps in marketing the products (Sivaramana and Kumar, 2018) According to the World Health Organization, 80% of the population in the developing countries depends upon the traditional and

International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 10 Number 02 (2021)

Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com

In the present study, an investigation was carried out to explore the diversity and community structures of phytoseiid mite fauna associated

with medicinal plants in four selected locations viz Ananthagiri,

CSIR-CIMAP campus, Kotapally and Eturangaram sanctuary situated in Southern, Northern and Central agroclimatic zones of Telangana A total of

515 specimens were collected during the present survey belonging to 8

genera and 13 species of which Euseius alstoniae (23%), Amblyseius largoensis (22%), Euseius ovalis (15%), Euseius astrictus (6%) and Phytoseius kapuri (2%) were the most abundant species Comparing all the

survey locations, Eturangaram sanctuary with natural vegetation of medicinal plants revealed maximum diversity of species whereas scanty vegetation of Ananthagiri hills yielded the least diversity of phytoseiid mites

K e y w o r d s

Phytoseiidae,

Diversity,

Medicinal Plants,

Telangana,

Community

structure, Mite

fauna

Accepted:

10 February 2021

Available Online:

10 March 2021

Article Info

herbal medicines in their primary healthcare

(Pramanik, 2004) Indeed, several modern

drugs are manufactured from phytochemicals

extracted from plants with medicinal

importance Healthy plant material is therefore

essential for maintaining product quality

However, both quality and quantity are

adversely affected by the damage of

phytophagous insect and mite pests and

diseases during their growth and development

The mites belonging to the family

Phytoseiidae (Mesostigmata) and Cheyletidae,

Cunaxidae, Stigmaeidae, Bdellidae, Tydeidae,

and Anystidae (Prostigmata) are plants

inhabiting pro-active predators to soft-bodied

insects and phytophagous mite pests in

agri-horticultural crops all over the world Among

the entire predatory mite group, phytoseiids

are the most important and commercially

exploited owing to their high searching

capacity, good adaptability to a wide

environmental condition, short life span

(1week approx.) and high multiplication

capability (40-60 off-springs per female)

(Gerson et al., 2003) Under the vision of

sustainable farming, these predators can be

utilised in the biological control and integrated

pest management strategies against different

crop pests Therefore, it is utterly important to

know about the diversity of various phytoseiid

mite species to employ effective pest

management strategies for cultivated

medicinal crops Till now the family

Phytoseiidae contains more than 2,400 species

worldwide (Demite et al., 2018) and every

year new species are being added to this list

Faunistic studies on Phytoseiidae of the

country have been explored since the 1960s

More than 235 species of Phytoseiidae are

described and reported from India (Karmakar

and Gupta, 2014; Pramanik and Karmakar,

2016; Karmakar et al., 2017 and Karmakar

and Bhowmik, 2018) of which only a few

species has been reported to be associated

with medicinal plants so far (Lahiri et al.,

2004; Gupta and Karmakar, 2011 and Haneef and Sadanandan 2013) Due to insufficient information available concerning phytoseiid mite fauna associated with medicinal plants in the state of Telangana, the present investigation was carried out to explore the diversity of phytoseiid mite complex on medicinal plants found in selected locations of this state

Materials and Methods Study area

Locations for collecting phytoseiid mites associated with medicinal plants from the three different agro-climatic zones of Telangana were nominated based on the availability of required vegetation and also because these locations represent overall agro-climatic features of the respective zones Kotapally from Northern Telangana, Eturangaram Sanctuary from Central Telangana, Ananthagiri and CSIR-CIMAP from Southern Telangana were selected for the current investigation (Figure 1) Edagatta forest and nearby localities (18055’40”N,

79049’12”E; 18056’1”N,79048’53”E;

18055’58”N,79049’28”E) in Kotapally; forest areas near Warangal- Eturangaram road and Burgampadu-Eturangaram road (18018’31”N,

80025’25”E 18018’57”N, 80025’1”E

18018’20”N, 80024’40”E) in Eturangaram sanctuary; vegetations near Vikarabad-Tandur road and birding site (17018’42”N, 77051’5”E;

17018’50”N, 77051’58”E) of Ananthagiri hills forest and medicinal plant garden of CSIR-CIMAP (17025’34”N, 78034’45”E) were selected to collect the specimens of phytoseiid

mites during the present survey

Collection and preservation of specimens

The phytoseiid mite fauna harbouring on different species of medicinal plants as well as medicinally important forest plants were

examined by making extensive surveys

covering different locations of Telangana

province during February 2020 Phytoseiid

mites are generally bigger in size and

fast-moving in nature

They were collected directly from the plant

with the help of fine camel hairbrush (size

000) and then preserved in 70% alcohol until

permanent slides were prepared Besides, a

direct beating method was adopted i.e., simply

beating the plant parts over black cardboard

and the dislodged mites were collected by

using a single hairbrush

The mite specimens were preserved in a

separate small plastic vial containing 70%

alcohol mentioning the name of the host and

the location Besides the targeted phytoseiid

fauna, the associated phytophagous mite and

soft bodied insects were also collected and

identified as potential prey for documented

phytoseiid predators though direct feeding of

these prey species was not observed during

present investigation

Identification of specimens

The specimens were brought to the Acarology

laboratory (All India Network Project on

Agricultural Acarology), Department of

Agricultural Entomology, Bidhan Chandra

Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal The

collected mite specimens were poured in a

cavity block and mounted on modified

Berlese’s medium for identification Then the

slides were dried in an oven at 400-450 C for 7

days

The mites were examined with a phase and

differential interference contrast microscope

(BX 53, Olympus) and the phytoseiid species

were identified following the keys provided by

Chant & McMurty (2007) The specimens

collected for the present study are deposited in

Acarology laboratory of the same institute

Type specimens of the collected species are presented in plate 1

Statistical analysis

To understand the diversity and community structure of different phytoseiid mite species

in selected locations the number of specimens for each species was enumerated reflecting the species richness (S) and the following diversity and evenness indices were calculated based on the formulae provided by Shannon-Weiner (1963)and Simpson (1949):

Shannon’s diversity index (H)

where the p is the proportion (n/N) of

individuals of one particular species found (n) divided by the total number of individuals found (N), ln is the natural log, Σ is the sum of the calculations, and s is the number of species The effective number of species (ENS) of each location was calculated taking the exponential of H

Simpson’s index (D)

where N stands for the total number of individuals in a community and n stands for the number of individuals of a particular species Species evenness was calculated from Pielou’s evenness index (E)

Pielou’s evenness index (E)

= ;

where H is Shannon’s diversity index and s is the total number of species in the surveyed area (Pielou, 1975) The coefficient of similarity between the surveyed locations was estimated based on the Sorenson’s coefficient (CC)

Sorenson’s coefficient (CC)

Where C is the number of species the two

communities have in common, S1 is the total

number of species found in community 1, and

S2 is the total number of species found in

community 2 (Sorenson, 1957)

Results and Discussion

A total of 515 specimens of Phytoseiid mites

belonging to 8 genera and 13 species were

collected from the natural and cultivated

vegetations of medicinal plants in Ananthagiri,

Kotapally, CSIR-CIMAP and Eturangaram

sanctuary located in different agroclimatic

zones of Telangana (Table 1) Diversity and

proportional abundance of the phytoseiid

species in selected locations are presented in

figure 2 The phytoseiid community structures

of these areas are furnished in Table 2 and 3

Sampling in the Eturangaram sanctuary

revealed highest species richness (S=9) among

the four survey locations followed by

Kotapally and CSIR-CIMAP with S=8 and

Ananthagiri with S=7

Also, the Eturangaram sanctuary had the

highest diversity of Phytoseiid species in

terms of H=1.76 with moderate species

evenness of 0.80 and 6 effective number of

species but lowest D=0.76 which reflects an

environment highly favourable for few species

while not so favourable for others Amblyseius

largoensis was the dominant species (40%) in

this region followed by Euseius alstroniae

(21%) and Euseius ovalis (15%) Surprisingly,

4 species of phytoseiids viz Asperoseius

longispinosus and Paraphytoseius orientalis

were found only in Eturangaram sanctuary

among the surveyed locations Despite having

similar species richness, Kotapally had higher

diversity in terms of H=1.70, ENS=8, D=0.80

and E=0.83 in comparison to the CSIR-CIMAP which exhibited the indices as 1.65, 5, 0.79 and 0.79 respectively Compared to the natural vegetation of Kotapally, medicinal plants sampled in the campus of CSIR-CIMAP are artificially maintained in agroecosystems which may lead to the reduction of species diversity in this location The number of plants surveyed was also less

in CSIR-CIMAP campus than the surveyed area of Kotapally which may be another reason for reduced diversity in this

area.Amblyseius largoensis and

Typhlodromips syzygii were the dominant

species (25% each) in Kotapally followed by

Amblyseius brachycalyx (20%) and Euseius alstoniae (15%) Present survey in

CSIR-CIMAP campus revealed the highest diversity

of Euseius alstoniae (33%) followed by Euseius ovalis (25%) and Euseius astrictus

(19%) Surprisingly, a single specimen of

Euseius sundarbanensis was discovered from

CIMAP which was not reported earlier from Southern India

Community structure of Phytoseiid species in Ananthagiri hills revealed lowest species diversity in terms of H=1.60, ENS=5, D=0.77 and E=0.82 probably due to less vegetation in

the surveyed areas Euseius ovalis (30%) was

the predominant species in this region

followed by Typhlodromips syzygii (28%) and Euseius alstoniae (24%)

The Sorenson's coefficient revealed extremely high community overlap or similarity between the species complex of Ananthagiri and Kotapally followed by a moderately high overlap of species complex between Kotapally and CSIR-CIMAP

At the same time, the species complex of Eturangaram sanctuary when compared with Kotapally, Ananthagiri and CSIR-CIMAP exhibited the lowest coefficient reflecting very less overlap between these communities

Table.1 Diversity of Phytoseiid mite fauna associated with different medicinal plants in selected

locations of Telangana

Location Name of host plants Name of Phytoseiid

species

Potential prey found during survey

Number of collected specimens of Phytoseiid mites Ananthagiri

(Southern

Telangana)

Millettia pinnata Vachellianilotica Ricinus communis Alstoniascholaris Tabernaemonta nadivaricata Bougainvillea glabra Nerium oleander Anacardium occidentale Cocos lucifera Earleaf acacia Tecoma stans Azadirachta indica Limoniaacidissima Sapindusmukorossi Earleaf acacia Senna auriculata Catharanthus roseus

Amblyseius brachycalyx

Karmakar, Bhowmik &

Sherpa, 2017

Amblyseius largoensis (Muma, 1955)

Euseius alstroniae (Gupta,

1975)

Euseius astrictus

Karmakar & Bhowmik,

2018

Euseius ovalis (Evans,

1953)

Tetranychusurticae, Polyphagotarsonemus

latus

29

Phytoseius kapuri (Gupta,

1969b)

Typhlodromips syzygii

(Gupta, 1975)

Tetranychus macfarlanei

27

Kotapally

(Northern

Telangana)

Phoenix dactylifera Santalum album Mangifera indica Ziziphus mauritiana Ficus racemosa Holarrhenapubescens Ocimum sanctum Manilkara zapota Citrus aurantifolia Moringa oleifera Mangifera indica Annona reticulata Psidium guajava Carica papaya Senna auriculata Terminalia arjuna Millettia pinnata Emblica officinalis Manilkara hexandra Butea monosperma Cyperus rotundus

Amblyseius brachycalyx

Karmakar, Bhowmik &

Sherpa, 2017

Polyphagotarsonemus

latus, Tetranychus urticae

44

Amblyseius largoensis (Muma, 1955)

Tetranychus urticae, Tetranychus macfarlanei, Eriophyid sp

54

Euseius alstroniae (Gupta,

1975)

Polyphagotarsonemus

latus,

Bemisia tabaci

42

Euseius astrictus

Karmakar & Bhowmik,

2018

Euseius ovalis (Evans,

1953)

Tetranychus macfarlanei

12

Phytoseius kapuri (Gupta,

1969b)

Typhlodromips syzygii (Gupta, 1975)

Polyphagotarsonemus

latus Eriophyid sp

53

Ocimimamericanum Ocimumbasillicum Morus alba Cassia fistula Cleistanthuscollinus Hibiscus rosa-sinensis Psidium cattleyanum Ficus religiosa Alangiumsalviifolium Ficus religiosa

(Anthoseius) sp

CIMAP

(Southern

Telengana)

Artocarpus heterophyllus Nycthanthesarbor-tristis Bougainvillea glabra Calophylluminophyllum Monoonlongifolium Psidium guajava Simarouba glauca Sapindusmukorossi Leucaena leucocephala Murrayakoenigii Azadirachta indica Withaniasomnifera Aegle marmelos Mimusopselengi Curcuma longa Justicia adhatoda Bombax ceiba Melia dubia Ocimum sanctum Tamarindus indica

Amblyseius brachycalyx

Karmakar, Bhowmik &

Sherpa, 2017

Amblyseius largoensis (Muma, 1955)

Polyphagotarsonemus

latus

1

Euseius alstroniae (Gupta,

1975)

Euseius astrictus

Karmakar & Bhowmik,

2018

Euseius ovalis (Evans,

1953)

Polyphagotarsonemus

latus

17

Euseius sundarbanensis

Karmakar & Bhowmik,

2018

Phytoseius kapuri (Gupta,

1969b)

Typhlodromus (Anthoseius) sp

Polyphagotarsonemus

latus

7

Eturangara

m sanctuary

(Central

Telengana)

Ricinus communis Bougainvillea glabra Tecoma stans Spathodeacampanulata Limoniaacidissima Earleaf acacia Catharanthus roseus Mangifera indica Ziziphus mauritiana Manilkara zapota Moringa oleifera Psidium guajava Senna auriculata

Amblyseius largoensis (Muma, 1955)

Asperoseius jujubae

Karmakar & Bhowmik,

2018

Euseius alstroniae (Gupta,

1975)

Polyphagotarsonemus

latus, Eriophyid sp

28

Euseius astrictus

Karmakar & Bhowmik,

2018

Euseius ovalis (Evans,

1953)

Butea monosperma

Morus alba

Cassia fistula

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis

Monoonlongifolium

Murrayakoenigii

Azadirachta indica

Ocimum sanctum

Carica papaya

Paraphytoseius orientalis

(Narayanan, Kaur &Ghai,

1960)

Polyphagotarsonemus

latus

5

Phytoseius kapuri (Gupta,

1969)

Phytoseius jujubae (Gupta,

1977)

Table.2 Community structure of Phytoseiid mite species associated with Medicinal plants in

selected locations of Telangana

Sampled

communities

Species richness (S)

Shannon Index (H)

ENS Simpson’s

Index (D)

Pielou’s Index (E)

Eturangaram

sanctuary(C4)

Fig.1 Survey locations in three agroclimatic zones of Telangana (Map modified from

https://pjtsau.edu.in/research.html)

Table.3 Species overlap between selected Phytoseiid communities associated with medicinal

plants of Telangana

Fig.2 Diversity and proportional abundance of Phytoseiid species in Telangana

Plate.1 Representatives of the phytoseiid fauna collected from the medicinal plants of

Telangana: A Amblyseius brachycalyx, B Amblyseiuslargoensis, C Asperoseius jujubae, D

Euseius alstroniae, E Euseius astrictus, F Euseius ovalis, G Euseiussundar banensis, H Neoseiulus longispinosus, I Paraphytoseius orientalis, J Phytoseius jujubae, K Phytoseius kapuri, L Typhlodromips syzygii

In the present investigation, Amblyseius

largoensis, Euseius alstoniae, Euseius ovalis,

Euseius astrictus and Phytoseius kapuri were

found as the most common species comprising

respectively 22%, 23%, 15%, 6% and 2% of

the total specimens which reflects a

considerably high abundance of these species

across all the selected locations of Telangana

Among the other species, Typhlodromips

syzygii (16%) collected from Ananthagiri and

Kotapally and Amblyseius brachycalyx (10%)

collected from Ananthagiri, Kotapally and

CSIR-CIMAP exhibited a moderate

abundance These predatory mites were found

to be associated with number of herbivore

mite and insect species such as

Polyphagotarsonemus latus, Raoiella indica,

Tetranychus spp Eriophyid species, Bemisia

tabaci etc but exact predator-prey relationship

was not established Tetranychus spp and

Polyphagotarsonemus latus were found to be

most abundant and potential prey species

during this survey

The present study reflects an overall diversity

and abundance of phytoseiid mites associated

with different medicinal plants of Telangana

The natural vegetations of Eturangaram forest

in Central Telangana zone reflected the

highest diversity and species richness

followed by the natural vegetations of

Kotapally in Northern Telangana Zone The

outcomes of this investigation will serve as

one of the most important references for future

faunistic studies of phytoseiid mites in

Telangana However, further survey and

sampling in these regions are required to

explore and describe the unknown and

rediscover the known species of phytoseiid

mites associated with medicinal and other

economically important plants and predator

prey relationship with associated

phytophagous mite and insect species requires

to be thoroughly investigated for formulating

effective biological control modules

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to Vice-Chancellor, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya and Co-ordinator, All India Network Project on Agricultural Acarology for providing necessary funds and facilities for this study The first author is grateful to Pavan Thakoor from Department of Agricultural Entomology, BCKV for his support during the survey in Telangana

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